The History of the River Lee
The River Lea or Lee runs from Luton in Bedfordshire to the River Thames in east London. Evidence of Bronze and Iron Age settlements have been found along the length of the river and the Romans built Ermine Street parallel to the Lee shortly after they arrived in Britain around two thousand years ago.
During the 9th century the river formed part of the boundary between Saxon England to the west and the invading Vikings to the east, led by King Alfred the Great and Guthrum respectively. It is said that when the Danes sailed up the river in around 895AD and established a base near Ware, Alfred stranded them there by reducing the level of the river. He did this by building an embankment and weir near the Thames, and dividing the river just above Waltham Abbey. How true this is we do not know, but the remains of Viking ships have been found near Hertford and Stanstead Abbots, the river does split into three near Waltham Abbey and the names Kings Weir and Blackwall date back to these times.
The waters of the Lee powered many mills producing flour, gunpowder and also England's first paper mill in c1494. As early as 1424 parliament passed an act allowing works to improve navigation, and the Lee was for centuries an important goods highway into London. Malt, flour, coal and gunpowder were all transported in large quantities to the capital. During the mid 1700's the navigation was much improved with new cuts and locks. Even after the arrival of the railways, imported timber was still transported along the Lee to yards and factories at Walthamstow and Tottenham, while coal was also taken up river to power stations at Hackney, Brimsdown and Rye House. The land surrounding the Lee near Stratford was ideally placed for industries that London did not want right on it's doorstep, such as slaughterhouses or gas works, but did want products from. By all accounts it was not hard to see (or smell) where the early bone china produced at Bow in the 1700's got it's bones from! Many new industries later grew up around Edmonton and Ponders End, including firms manufacturing the world's first radio valves and vacuum flasks. At Enfield Lock, the Royal Small Arms Factory was the major supplier of arms for the British Army for over a century, and the "Matchbox" toys of every 60's schoolboy were made in factories on the Lee at Hackney. While there is still industry in the Lee Valley, the nature of much of it has changed over the past fifty years or so. Some of the older traditional sites remain along the navigation, but many have been replaced by smaller industrial estates bringing new light and service industries to the region.
